Whitechapel and West End Weekend

You may have noticed I’ve been a little quiet the past few days. That’s because I was in London! We went museum hopping and attended two plays, Bitter Wheat by David Mamet starring John Malkovich and an intimate performance by Marina Sirtis (of Star Trek TNG fame) in Dark Sublime. Both were incredibly enjoyable despite the mixed reviews I’ve seen from critics. I mean, is John Malkovich ever not fantastic?

The rest of our days were non-stop, with most of our time spent in the Whitechapel district of London- best known for the gruesome Jack the Ripper murders. The East End of London has an incredible history and is jam packed with culture. The food, the people, the markets, and the neighbourhoods are hard to beat and I could happily spend weeks there exploring its streets.

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Now what does all this have to do with books, you say? Literature is deeply entwined with London and had direct connections with many of our excursions. My husband and I have a bit of a Victorian London addiction, especially when it comes to Whitechapel. We’ve watched the movies and TV shows and have a ridiculous amount of books on the subject, both fiction and non-fiction. So to be able to walk the streets we knew so much about was pretty fantastic for us, even if they’d be mostly unrecognisable today to a Victorian Londoner. You can still feel the history seeping up from the sidewalks, though.

Here’s me on the case in the Jack the Ripper Museum!

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After the plays we stopped at a West End pub we frequently visit when we’re in London because of our shared love of everything Sherlock Holmes. It’s a bit of a gimmick, but the interior is really atmospheric of a traditional English pub and the selection they have on tap is impressive (even though I only had tea). It’s always filled with people but this time we managed to snag a table after two years of trying!

Finally solved the case of being able to sit down here.

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We also went to the Churchill War Rooms, which is a place I highly recommend seeing if you’re in London. You truly get a sense of the British government’s war effort during WWII whilst you’re there. There’s a Churchill Museum toward the middle, filled with interactive displays as well as artifacts from his life including an utter gem I couldn’t stop geeking out over:

I still can’t get over how stunning this is.

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And of course no Bookworm Trip would be complete without buying a few books! I somehow managed to keep myself from walking into every bookstore I saw, but I still ended up with a few from museum gift shops… and added several more to my Amazon wishlist.

Bought from the Jack the Ripper Museum shop and it’s signed by the author!

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Have you been to London? What are some of your favourite spots there?

How many of you also tend to come back from vacations with a suitcase full of new books? Let me know in the comments!